Ace of Spades
by jomiddlemarch
Summary: Leslie hadn't had one misgiving about moving back to Pawnee.


Gryzzyl had made an app for her, the "Guvnor's Bynder" which she appreciated for the echo of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, but Leslie didn't like the profligate and unnecessary use of y's and nothing could replace her actual binders. So, that's what she had out on the kitchen table on the triplets' first day of high school, each color-coded to the correct triplet, along with a plate of freshly baked cookies decorated with "Pawnee High" in the school colors and mugs of cocoa. It was too hot for cocoa but with enough whipped cream, she was sure no one would care.

She only expected Stephen to come home on the bus. Sonia had announced her plan to sign up for at least three activities and to meet with the vice-principal, Allison Giffert, Leslie's one-time protégé-slash-pawn-slash-mini-me, about starting at least three more, including a raccoon rehabilitation club and a mobile salad truck for outlying areas of Pawnee that had never thrown off the yoke of Sweetums. Wesley would probably be hanging around the library, reorganizing the sci-fi section and then petitioning the librarian (the librarian!) to order the entire works of Neal Stephenson and Octavia Butler, "Butler first, if you have to pick." Leslie ate a cookie quickly, to get the bad library taste out of her mouth, and then rearranged the remaining cookies so they still spelled "Happy First Day of School." The i missed its dot, but otherwise, it worked just fine.

"Hi there, sweetheart! How was the first day?" Leslie called out as soon as the door opened. Sonia would still be taking off her backpack and Wesley dancing to whatever retro mix Tom had sent him piped in through his Gryzzl-buds, but Stephen made a bee-line to the table and miracle of miracles, didn't have his tablet out. Yet. There were approxiately 13 minutes' worth of quality conversation to be had and have them, Leslie would!

"It was pretty good. Pawnee High is a little…weird. But good weird. Like, there are free gumball dispensers and the water runs in the bathroom sinks for an entire verse of "Bye, Bye, Lil' Sebastian," but the kids were cool," Stephen said, around a mouthful of his third cookie. It was a good thing she had two separate Tupperwares of cookies for Sonia and Wesley. There was a smear of yellow frosting (not mustard!) on his upper lip but she refrained from wiping it off, even though they were at home. Ben said she had to maintain consistency or she'd never make a real behavioral change. She felt the tingle in her fingers to swipe the frosting and ruffle her son's sandy hair and curled her hand around her cup of cocoa instead.

"Did John look out for you? And Oliver?" Leslie asked. She and Ann had spent approximately 2.7 hours discussing the first day, week and quarter of school. She knew better than to try with Ron but Diane had sent a reassuring text, sans emoji, about making sure John kept an eye out for the kids.

"Yeah. Don't tell Uncle Ron, Mom, but at school, no one calls John 'John,'" Stephen said, in the tone of the revelation in the first Da Vinci Code movie, when it seemed like maybe it would be good and spooky and unsolvable.

"What do they call him?"

"Jack. Sometimes Jackson 5. I don't think Uncle Ron would be to happy about it. Jack, I mean, John swore me to secrecy," Stephen replied. Leslie didn't ask if they had pinky-promised or gone full blood brother; Stephen wouldn't tell her anyway.

"Gotcha. So, the other kids were cool and Oliver and Jack were cool. What about your teachers?"

"They were okay. I think the English teacher has been there as long as Ms. Beavers has been alive, but she was okay. And my science teacher is awesome… he has this amazing lab and this big, crazy marble run thing, and a scale model of Pawnee with a suspension bridge over the Newport River made of dental floss and his tablets are all hacked into Gryzzl. He swears Gryzzl doesn't know," Stephen explained, growing more animated as he described the science teacher. Ben had dealt with registering the kids and she hadn't looked much past Allison's name, but it sounded like Stephen would thrive and she sat back, feeling the glow of sugar and the satisfaction of being in her home-town, her kids attending her alma mater.

"He actually gave me something to give to you," Stephen said, rifling through his backpack before she could ask what. He pulled out an object in a glittering, skeletal, biodegradable Gryzzl-case and set it down in front of her. She smelled it before she consciously perceived what it was—summer and juice running down her chin and betrayal. A perfect peach.

"Pikitis!"


End file.
